Ok I'm starting to get to the deep cuts on the Genesis. (Currently taking a break due to health issues) What's a good game to play?

Keep in mind:

I hate Sonic games... they are designed poorly compared to SMB. I've already blown through all the Streets of Rage games and Golden Axe. Unless it's really different, playing arcade ports is a little pointless.... I've got a MAME cabinet after all.

When I start again I intend to beat Moonwalker... it's surprisingly good. I also have decap-attack on my radar.

I would appreciate any suggestions.

Also slightly unrelated.... would anyone be interested in Genesis reviews by someone who wasn't really exposed to the Genesis, and therefore isn't blinded by nostalgia?

Thanks for the suggestions guys. Ghouls n' Ghosts was one I already stumbled upon. What struck me as surprising was how well they managed to port it considering the limited palette of the genesis. The controls seem a tad bit snappier compared to the snes port, which I didn't expect at all.

When I get time I'm thinking of doing more on my youtube channel, but virtually everything game-related has already been covered, so I'm trying to think of unique ideas.

Beyond Oasis (or play the much better Saturn Sequel)Gun Star Heroes Xmen 2Herzog ZweiEternal Champions is good for a few games, Sega CD version is superior in every wayGeneral Chaos (I love this game, no ones ever heard of it)Batman and RobinMutant League Hockey / FootballDr Robotniks Mean Bean Machine (pnickies reskin)Shinobi 3 Road Rash 2 or 3 or Skitchin

Honorable Mentions:Virtua Racing , seriously impressive port of the arcade game dunno if this violates the no arcade port since this can be played with a game pad instead of a wheel.Zero Wing : All your base are belong to us.Mega Man Wily Wars : port of the 3 NES games just neat to see.Twinkle Tale , its just fuggin weird , plays like Rambo in a final fantasy settingPanorama Cotton : its like Space Harrier but on a broom

It's a very early and primitive game, but we enjoyed the hell out of Rambo on the Genesis for years. I remember the advertisements having completely different looking levels, so maybe there's some beta versions floating around out there, too.... There was some odd trick to make yourself invincible. Exploding a certain barrel on an early level that was barely on screen, IIRC.

Also recall DJ Boy being fun and having different levels than the arcade version. I got it as a bonus when I bought my system.

Target Earth was another strange one we played a lot. Impossible without the invincibility trick, though.

The same place that sold you that NES cartridge is also remaking Genesis/Megadrive cartridges for a few bucks....

Three or four games (including the arcade version) are all called Moonwalker and they are all completely different games. The Genesis version plays a lot like a data east side-scroller. There were also some home "computer" versions. I put "computer" in quotes because it's those, odd, uk computers that nobody cares about anymore... not a proper pc.

Also slightly unrelated.... would anyone be interested in Genesis reviews by someone who wasn't really exposed to the Genesis, and therefore isn't blinded by nostalgia?

Yes, that. I also didn't play the Genesis (Mega Drive in my World) or indeed the SNES, Master System and NES. Or later (N64, Game Cube). I was Electron, Spectrum, Amiga and then a gap until Playstation. I play so many of the games considered good on the consoles yet they aren't. Streets of Rage that you mention being one of them actually. Super Mario Bros, yes, certainly (also don't get the Sonic hype - too fast and too seemingly lucky to my mind). So, what plays well now - what hasn't aged!

There is a certain element of luck in any game (Thats kind of the point of it being a game is it not?) But Sonic is no different to mario in it just takes skill at a somewhat faster pace!

And I stick by my comments that SOR is the best Beat Em Up ever. It only used 3 buttons but made the full use of those buttons to give each character a unique fighting style, move list and to some degree combos. Even its balance and game play was in my mind perfect.Then the music is what set it above and beyond anything coming close to it.

I have played pretty much all of the other including the suposed "legendary" ones and none of them have ever come close for me.They either seem to be unbalanced or just dont have the same level of depth.

Must admit though I differ from most SOR lovers in that I personally prefer 2 where most people like 3 more.

Must admit though I differ from most SOR lovers in that I personally prefer 2 where most people like 3 more.

I'm the same. SoR2 is my all time favourite scrolling brawler across any platform - arcade included.

I honestly can't stand SoR3. It feels too loose, and like pointless things got added in that didn't improve the game. And don't get me started on the music - terrible! Subjective likes and dislikes of course, but 2 was the peak for me, and I haven't found another scrolling brawler I've liked nearly as much ("Sengoku 3" and late Capcom titles like "Cadillacs and Dinosaurs", "Punisher", "Alien vs Predator" come close, but SoR2 is still my favourite even on lessor hardware).

Back on the topic of Megadrive/Genesis games - some great recommendations in this thread already. Monster World IV would be the only one I'd add to the list (being a fan of the series, with Dragon's Trap on SMS being in my top 10 favourite games ever). Right now I'm playing Phantasy Star on Master System for the first time ever (and my first JRPG ever, as someone who hated the look of them when I was younger). I'm planning on adding the 16bit Phantasy Star games to the list, as well as some Ys 8 and 16bit games games.

When looking for games on a system, I always check out Racketboy and HG101. Racketboy make it a bit easier to digest, and their while their "defining games" series is good, their "hidden gems" is fantastic:

I just don't. Do we ever know "why" we don't like a game (or film, or book) we just either like it or we don't. I've tried to play Sonic several times and I just didn't get into it. Super Mario Bros was far from instant for me either, actually, but I did get there.

Also slightly unrelated.... would anyone be interested in Genesis reviews by someone who wasn't really exposed to the Genesis, and therefore isn't blinded by nostalgia?

No. Not really interested in reviews by a Nintendo fanboy.

I'm more of a sega fanboy, but they lost me at the Sega CD.It was the most disappointing purchase of my formative years.Months and months of saving up money from my grocery store job and pre-ordering at full price.My stomach sank further with each game I launched.Sol Feace, Road Rash, & Wonder Dog were the only halfway decent games I had for it and those were pretty much just Genesis games with better music.

Sol Feace, Road Rash, & Wonder Dog were the only halfway decent games I had for it and those were pretty much just Genesis games with better music.

I'll give some Sega CD suggestions by category. Sega didnt lose me at the Sega CD, they lost me at the 32x but won me back over with the Saturn.

Just good games:Snatcher - Probably the best Sega CD game ever.Final Fight CD -hands down the best port of the game sans emulationRoad Avenger - Like Dragon's Lair without Daphne annoying you, and youre driving a car, and theres a gang.Willy Beamish - my introduction to the point and click genreLunar (both) -fun RPGs with great music, voice acting, and cut scenes. Everything Working Designs touched turned to gold.Silpheed was a fantastic on rails shooter that did a good job of "faking" better graphics by putting polys on FMV

Cart upgrades:Eternal Champions CD - just a great upgrade. Lots of new fighters, levels, better music, FMV endings and cut scenesAmazing Spiderman - Changed the base game enough to make it different and added a lot of video extrasNBA Jam - pretty much the same visuals as the cart but bigger and better "half time" videos, better music, and an ending videoMortal Kombat - its really just the cart with better music, marginal load times, and the TV commercial as an introNHL 94 - Well NHL 94 is the best NHL game, and this one is the best console version of that game. There SO.MUCH.AUDIO. I know where 80% of the disc space went.Earth Worm Jim - With emulation you wont have the bear the terrible load times, and you can still enjoy the new levels. The "Bad Ending" is hilarious. YouTube it.

Honorable mentions for non ---smurfy--- FMV games:Ground Zero Texas, entertaining but the difficulty curve at the end is INSANETomCat Alley , not that great but it was like playing the Top Gun the Movie without the awesome VolleyBall sceneSewer Shark , trick to beating the game was to not fire the gun too much. I give this one leeway cause it was a freebie with most systems. WE'RE RATIGATOR BAIT!

---smurfy--- FMV games good for 1 play through:Supreme WarriorPrize FighterWireheadMasked Rider (may rank higher if youre a Kamen Rider Zero Fan)Power Rangers (again, you might play it more than once if you loved MMPR)

---smurfy--- FMV games not worth 1 play throughSlam City f/ Scottie PippenDouble SwitchFahrenheitAny of the make my music video gamesBug BlastersNight Trap

I think Sonic CD is probably the best Sonic game, but the only other ones I really like are Sonic Spinball and Sonic All Star Racing Transformed. I was hopeful for Sonic Generations but ultimately let down.

Good write up, I think I owned most of the Sega CD library. It was easy to do when you could walk into KB Toys with $30 and walk out with 6 games. It was that, or Snatcher. (Yes, I still kick myself)

I will mention that Willy Beamish was borderline unplayable on Sega CD. I had played through it on PC and was looking forward to an enhanced version. The load times were excruciating. There were load times mid-sentence. I don't think we finished the classroom scene it was so bad.

Spiderman was fun but they neutered the part where you punched out the cop. Put that CD in your dad's stereo and skip to the last track if you're looking to troll your parents.

Recall that Silpheed and Flashback were particularly nice on Sega CD. Rise of the Dragon was fun. Played a lot of AH-3 Thunderstrike.

I don't have a CD yet. I want to work my way though the genesis and master system library first.

I would say, and this is just going by what I've went through so far..... about a third of the library are games that were also released on the snes. In most of those cases, the snes port is better because of the sony sound chip and a higher color palette. I've ran across a handful that have more responsive controls on the genesis though. An other third of the games, like most consoles, are just garbage. It's not a knock on the console... that's just how game development goes. Then you've got the rest... most are average to good games and a few are really good. I've found very few that hold a candle to classics like the SMB, Zelda, and Metroid franchises though. So thus far, it's a respectably good console.

Some that I liked as a kid (I did have SOME exposure to the Genesis) really haven't held up. I loved Altered Beast, but playing it now.... meh....

I will say this though... the library is MUCH better than the Dreamcast. Every Sega fan acts like it's the second coming of Christ...... it's 90% arcade titles that are way too short to pay that kind of money for (at the time) and a handful of good games. You have to do some really deep cuts on that one to find anything truly worthwhile. The console really had potential, but I think they cancelled it before anything really good came out.

When looking for games on a system, I always check out Racketboy and HG101. Racketboy make it a bit easier to digest, and their while their "defining games" series is good, their "hidden gems" is fantastic:

I was reading an article the other day and apparently the expansion port the CD plugs into gives you access to virtually everything on the system. I'm wondering how much stuff, besides the optical drive, is on the cd add-on, because it might very well be possible to just make a brand new add-on from scratch as you are suggesting.

You bought Sega systems for the arcade ports. It makes me sad that NES gets all the retro kitsch glory, but there's not too many people wanting to play rough versions of Altered Beast or Golden Axe these days. Agree with you on Dreamcast.

Well it makes sense. Nintendo arcade games... well... most of them sucked. They really found their calling with consoles. Sega on the other hand rarely ever made a console exclusive game worth buying... it's one of the main reasons they are sort of struggling now.

The NES gets a lot of praise because it was an early enough console to where they were still experimenting with gameplay. By the 16 bit era everything was pretty much locked down.... rpgs, beat em ups, platformers, and space shooters. That was it and all games looked and played pretty much the same. Things started to get interesting in the psx/n64 era and then stagnation again.